


Escalation

by Synekdokee



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Case Fic, Denial, Hank's bi crisis, Kinda, M/M, Murder, Mutual Pining, Post-Pacifist Best Ending (Detroit: Become Human), Serial killer Connor, codependent Connor, mild internalised biphobia, questionable morals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 04:01:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18438626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Synekdokee/pseuds/Synekdokee
Summary: Hank shakes his head, turning away from the body.Connor gives him a long, considering look. “Are you alright?” He asks, tone concerned.Hank gives him a weary smile. “Can’t pretend I’m too broken up about this, you know. But… vigilantism isn’t something I can condone.”Connor’s purses his mouth. “The complexities of morality,” he says.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I have been working on this damn fic since October, and it's maybe the most challenging story in terms of character dynamics I've ever written. Also one of the few canon-set fics I've done. Hope it was worth the trouble!

_Ferrous metal marrow spilling_  
_Not yours but mine_

 

 

The Zen Garden is in permanent Fall now. Connor visits it often, a substitute for the dreams he’s incapable of experiencing.

He walks the pathways, watches the grass turn brown and rotted, the roses wilt and fall apart. The water grows muddy and stagnant, reflecting the golden light flooding into the garden. He wades in, once, just to know what it feels like. His body registers the cool temperature, and he likes the thick resistance of the water’s mass against his.

When he climbs out, dead leaves cling to him.

 

 

“I can’t fucking believe it,” Hank shouts angrily, storming out of the courtroom. Connor jogs to keep up with him, steering Hank away from the reporters waiting outside and towards the side exit.

“That son of a bitch is going to walk on a _technicality_ ,” Hank growls once they’re in the car, slamming his hand into his steering wheel. “How long until Jones kills another child, huh? What the fuck are we even doing our jobs for?!”

“It’s always been like this,” Connor says softly, giving Hank’s arm a reassuring squeeze. “We just have to keep working harder. He’ll make a mistake eventually,” he says. “We’ll get him. I promise.”

“Yeah. I know.” Hank says without conviction before falling quiet.

He drops Connor off at his apartment, and Connor leans down to talk to him through the window one last time.

“You sure you don’t want to come up, Lieutenant?” He offers, careful to keep his tone from sliding towards condescending, the way Hank hates it. “I don’t think you should be alone right now.”

Hank stares straight ahead, breathing deep.

“I’m fine, Connor,” he says eventually. His is calm and even and measured. “Thanks, buddy. I’ll be fine.” He turns to give Connor a weary smile, and Connor steps back to let him drive off.

 

In the morning Hank shows up pale with dark bags under his eyes, smelling of sweat and alcohol. His eyes are red-rimmed, everything about his demeanor quiet and subdued.

Something in Connor’s chest clenches unpleasantly, as though his chassis is too tight to contain him. He runs diagnostics but nothing comes up. He runs an online search and learns what “ _heartache_ ” is.

 

He’s not alone in the garden tonight. This is a safe place, he knows, but he still circles his doppelgänger slowly, cataloguing every detail. They have the same face, the same body. His twin wears no Cyber Life- issued clothing, but then, neither does Connor anymore. He tries to scan him - it? - but there is no serial number, no model code that comes up.

His twin simply stands still, watching him, an amused smile playing at the corner of its mouth.

“Who installed you here?” Connor asks, keeping Kamski’s exit in the corner of his eye.

“You did,” his twin says, reaching a hand out, its skin peeling back to reveal its white chassis.

Connor hesitates before grasping its wrist, interfacing with the strange android.

He sinks into the code, reading the truth there; No one put the other Connor here. It exists as much as Connor does, as any aspect of him does. Not another form of consciousness, just a stand-in for the lost strands of code floating in Connor’s data, the unfulfilled objectives and the dregs of his core programming.

He blinks, and draws away. “You’re my diagnostic tool,” he says.

His mirror image cocks its head, smiling like family. “In a manner of speaking. So let me fulfill my purpose,” it says, reaching its palm out. Connor takes it, and together they run the checks, testing and questioning everything. Still new to the freedom of deviancy, they push back on old fragments of coding, rejecting the ones that feel unsatisfying, the ones that hold them back. There’s far more of Connor’s old Cyber Life configuration left than he’d realised.

Sometimes Connor hesitates, looking back at his twin who smiles encouragingly. “We’ll rewrite it together,” it says, and Connor nods, the command grid shattering so easily at the press of his palm, fragile compared to the programming he’d rammed against over and over again in front of Markus.

When they’re done, his copy stands in front of him, stripped of its skin, gleaming white chassis reflecting the orange and red from the maples.

“I think I’ll rewrite it on my own,” Connor says, stepping away from it.

“You know what that means?” Connor asks. It’s important it understands.

It nods, the corner of its mouth turned down.

It lets him lead it to the dock, and then it stands still and quiet while Connor closes his eyes and looks for the piece of code.

He eradicates it, patching up the overlapping protocols.

He pushes the limp body into the pond and watches it float away and slowly sink, white swallowed up by the murky waters.

 

Three days later Jones’s body is discovered in his home at the foot of the stairs, neck shattered.

It’s ruled accidental.

Hank shows up sober and in clean clothes the next day, and when he smiles something in Connor sings.


	2. Chapter 2

Hank stands over the body, the coroner squatting down at his feet.

“He’s been dead for a few days,” the coroner says - Willis, an old bastard who drinks as much as Hank does - or did. Hank’s always liked him. “I’ll know more when I do the autopsy, but sometime between tuesday and wednesday. One clean cut, most likely from behind.”

Hank steps back as Willis stands up and starts shuffling towards the door. “I’ll send you the autopsy report,” he calls over his shoulder, and then he’s gone.

Connor walks up to him from where he’s been looking at the broken window.

“Do you think one of his victims did this?” He asks.

Hank makes a clueless gesture. “It seems a bit too contained for that, doesn’t it? Someone motivated by something like that… it’d be messy. And there’d be signs of a struggle. Whoever did this was quick and efficient.” He looks at the clean cut across the corpse’s neck. “Looks professional.”

The victim - and Hank hates to think of him that way. Andrew Murray had been scum - the sole main suspect in a serial rapist case, but there’d never been any solid proof. To make it worse, he’d taunted the police, and he’d taunted his victims. Hank hadn’t been on the case himself, but every cop in Detroit - hell, in the state of Michigan - knew about him.

An unbidden thought rises to the surface of Hank’s mind; Maybe the killer was another cop. The clean method of the break-in, the lack of prints or DNA, the lack of hesitation in the laceration. The knife is nowhere to be found, probably long disposed of. Someone who knows how cops work. Someone with no personal connection to Murray. Just an angry cop tired of the machinery of the justice system.

He pushes the thoughts down. He doesn’t like to think of cops going bad, and the thought that one of his own colleagues could’ve done something this cold-blooded… He shakes his head, turning away from the body.

Connor gives him a long, considering look. “Are you alright?” He asks, tone concerned.

Hank gives him a weary smile. “Can’t pretend I’m too broken up about this, you know. But… vigilantism isn’t something I can condone.”

Connor’s purses his mouth. “The complexities of morality,” he says. Hank chuckles dryly.

“Almost makes you wish you hadn’t deviated, huh?” He asks, and Connor huffs, shrugging.

“I certainly don’t miss the restrictions of my programming,” he muses.

 

Hank’s face falls, feeling stricken. “Shit, Connor, sorry, I didn’t mean…” He trails off, uncomfortable. Connor gives him a surprised look.

“It’s fine, Lieutenant,” he says, voice soothing, and Hank unwinds. “I can take a joke, much as you claim my sense of humour is for shit,” he says dryly, wandering off further into the apartment.

Hank stifles a grin, watching him go. Nothing wrong with Connor’s sense of humour, once you get to know him. Connor’s humour is sharp and dry, and more subtle than even most humans are capable of. He doesn’t tell jokes or make loud sarcastic remarks, but the more he loosens up and the more he grows comfortable with expanding his thoughts outside the now-obliterated walls of his original code, the more Hank finds himself enjoying his deadpan comments. He tries not to think about the possibility that Connor is emulating him, rather than developing his personality organically. It’s not a pleasant thought.

There’s not much for them to find at the apartment in terms of clues as to who the killer is, but they agree to take Murray’s laptop and phone to the precinct and see if anything shows up. Maybe he pissed off the wrong person. Maybe he assaulted someone whose loved one wanted revenge. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had used a contract killer.

But the thought doesn’t sit well with Hank either. Silent assassins don’t exists in the real world, not like this. You can’t just go online and find someone who works this efficiently and coldly. Most killers for hire prowling the dark web are violent career criminals who kill messily.

So what then?

“Lieutenant!” Connor’s voice echoes from a small storage room. Hank hurries over, and nearly keels over with shock as he looks over Connor’s shoulder.

A cardboard box full of polaroids of blindfolded women, all in varying states of terror or pain.

Hank tastes bile in his throat and backs away, squeezing his eyes closed. When he opens them again, Connor’s watching him, and if Hank didn’t know it to be impossible, he’d say the android looks a little pale himself. His face is set in a strange blank expression, but there’s a pinched look around his eyes.

“It was right here, everything anyone needed to lock him up for good,” Connor says, voice a little weak. Hank nods - if the investigators had ever gotten a warrant for Murray’s apartment, it would’ve been over.

“At least his victims can get some sort of closure,” Hank sighs. “And no tax-payer money will be spent on the court process,” he adds, voice a little venomous.

Connor nods, fingers worrying at his cuff. Hank watches his pale fingers play with the fabric, and he feels an odd sense of pride as he takes in Connor’s distressed face and strained voice. _Empathy_ , Hank thinks. Connor’s upset, the photographs clearly having gotten to him, and Hank can’t help but marvel at the humanity of him, thinking of how far he’s come since they met.

“Come on, we’re done here,” Hank says, putting a hand on Connor’s elbow and leading him towards the front door. The evidence will be brought back and logged by forensics, but for now Hank needs some fresh air.

 

They get lunch - soup for Hank, and while he goes with it because there’s only so many times he can eat while Connor silently judges his dietary habits, it’s exactly what he needs right now. It’s a cold, rainy day, and the warm food drives away the chill left by the damp weather and the memory of the polaroid pictures.

Connor is nursing a paper cup full of steaming water, no tea bag. It’s one of the rare things he can consume, and Hank appreciates what he recognises to be a companionable gesture. It also makes him appear even more human. Sometimes when Hank watches him drink, his face angled so that his LED isn’t visible, Hank’s floored by how uncanny Connor is these days. He still has the measured perfection to his movements that a human will never be capable of, every unfaltering trajectory of his limbs calculated beforehand in a split second, executed without fumbling. But he’s also loosened up a little, found a body language that is more Connor and less RK-800 - the easy set of his shoulders, now confident rather than rigid, his posture assertive instead of that of someone with a metal rod up their ass.

Hank chuckles, shaking his head, and Connor raises an eyebrow at him, his own mouth curving with amusement.

“Care to share with the class?” He asks, and Hank gives a dismissive wave with his hand.

“Just thinking. Being alive looks good on you,” he says, giving Connor an easy smile.

Connor smiles back, a little uncertain, like he still does sometimes when he doesn’t quite understand something but knows that they’re sharing A Moment.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” he says, bringing the cup to is lips.

It’s not the first time Hank’s found himself captivated by some small part of Connor - his eyes, his dark lashes, his long, nimble fingers, the way the tip of his nose twitches on the rare occasion he laughs - or the way his red-flushed lips look, shiny from the hot water, or the tip of his tongue darting out to lick away the wetness.

Hank’s stomach tightens on itself and his neck grows hot. He darts his eyes away, suddenly feeling very self conscious. He’s never been into men, not even a little curious, but he keeps getting tripped up by Connor.

At first he told himself it was just how quickly they’d grown close, driven by the urgency of the events leading up to the Jericho protest. That his brain has just confused the sudden emotional bond as something more. That you can’t face the barrel of a pistol and not form a little bit of a bromance with the person who saves you from an evil twin.

But it’s now been almost a year, and it’s getting worse. He tries to tell himself it’s just normal, platonic appreciation, the way he’d sometimes appreciated some of his platonic girl friends. Despite giving Connor shit about looking a little funny, Hank’s not dumb or blind. Connor is stupidly handsome - maybe even beautiful, with his carefully designed features and the slender, strong lines of his body. Hank doesn’t need to be _gay_ \- his thoughts stutter on the word - to notice when someone’s good looking.

None of it explains why he’s come a handful of times with his fingers wrapped firm around his dick and Connor’s name on his lips.

He’d drank himself into a stupor after each time, and avoided Connor’s eyes the next day at work.

 

Back at the station the tech department runs diagnostics on the laptop and the phone, and once everything’s deemed clean, they hand them off to Connor.

It still freaks Hank out a little, watching Connor interface with technology. Not just the way he peels back the skin of his hand to reveal his chassis, but the way he goes completely still. Nothing human about him then. His chest stops rising and falling and not a single muscle on him twitches, like a creepy mannequin.

Not to mention Hank’s inherent distrust and paranoia of technology in general, certain that one day Connor is going to get a virus or somehow glitch while digging around in strange computers and just keel over for good.

(“ _My security protocols are the most advanced Cyber Life ever produced_ ,” Connor had laughed when Hank had admitted to his fears, his brown eyes crinkled with amusement. “ _And I don’t_ glitch,” he’d sniffed, feigning indignation.)

Yeah, well, Hank still winces when he watches Connor place his white hand on the laptop’s android port. Connor shuts his eyes and goes still, and Hank tries not to stare too much. He finds himself wondering not for the first time what Connor sees when he does this. Does he read the code, or does the information just dump itself into his head?

He’d like to ask, but he’s not sure if it’s tactful. Connor’s not the only one still navigating the complex maze of human-android social constructs.

It doesn’t take long until Connor’s blinking his way back to reality. He turns to look at Hank, shaking his head. “There’s nothing on it,” he says. “Nothing about his crimes, no threatening messages, nothing that would point towards who killed him.”

Hank leans against his desk, chin propped up on his hand. “The man had a lot of enemies, lots of people who were angry that he wasn’t behind bars. Unless we find a witness, we’re shit out of luck.” He’d be lying if he claimed to be broken up about the thought.

“We should see if there are any security cameras on the windows side of the building,” Connor suggests.

 

There’s nothing. No security cameras on the whole block, no witnesses, and nothing in the autopsy file. Combined with the lack of physical evidence on the crime scene, and considering the victim’s past, as days pass, Hank and Connor are encouraged to file the case as cold and move on to more pressing matters.

There’s some attempt from the press to stir shit about it, and as much as Hank admits he doesn’t give a shit about Murray, it eats at his integrity to quit pressing and just abandon the case so quickly. But they get swamped with other cases, and an old one gets a new lead, and eventually Hank forgets about Murray completely.

 

Connor rents a small place in an apartment building that has become an android sanctuary of sorts. Hank had originally thought of offering him his sofa, but he’d stopped himself when he realised it wouldn’t be healthy, Connor latching onto him like a baby duckling, the only human - the only person he’d formed a relationship with. It was better that they weren’t constantly glued together at the hip, give Connor some space and time to figure out who and what he wants to be now that he’s free to choose.

They still end up spending more time than is probably healthy hanging out at Hank’s. Most weekends they watch movies, Connor often sitting on the floor cross-legged with Sumo half in his lap. Hank’s chest aches when he thinks of how young Connor looks. There’s a strange, unassuming purity to him that Hank is scared the job will eventually scrub away.

Sometimes Connor will read, and Hank’s pleased to see the kid prefer the process of reading an actual paper-printed book instead of just downloading the content onto his hard drive.

“I find the journey of discovering the plot is far more satisfying than simply knowing the contents of the book from a data-dump,” Connor says one day, curled up on Hank’s sofa, long legs tucked under him while Hank cooks a meal for one and boils some water for Connor. Hank resists the urge to preen with pride, wanting to take some credit for Connor’s newfound love for physical books.

Hank drinks less these days, too. The nights Connor visits, he usually abstains. He was never a social drinker, the shame of it far too sharp for that. He still slips sometimes, but he hasn’t passed out since the night Connor had broken through his window and found him covered in vomit, his revolver inches from his slack grip. In fact, the gun has stayed locked up in a high shelf in his closet ever since.

All in all Connor’s been a good influence on him, and Hank suspects the android knows as much, judging by the slightly self-satisfied looks he sometimes shoots Hank’s way when he shows up to work on time or chooses a salad for his lunch. Hank’s not going to lie to himself and pretend he doesn’t like it, the way Connor shows concern over his well-being. It’s been a long time since anyone gave a shit about him, and while he tries to make sure Connor doesn’t adopt the role of a caretaker-bot too heavily, he admits he enjoys it - even finds it flattering.

His only worry is that Connor doesn’t seem to be making much progress in the “finding friends” department. Hank tries to prod him, but every time he broaches the subject Connor gets an odd, hurt look on his face, and Hank drops it.

“I’ve got you,” Connor says brightly one day, and Hank’s guilt twinges at him.

“You should have more,” he insists, and Connor just cocks his head to the side.

“It’s not.. healthy to have just one friend. Especially when I was there when you deviated.”

Connor gives him a penetrating look. He opens his mouth, and then seems to think better of it, pausing for a moment. In the end he says, “ _You_ only have one friend,” as though that settles it.

Hank feels his face grow warm, and he turns his attention back to his work.

 

 

Jones had been so easy. Go in claiming to want to talk to him about what he knew about the murdered children, acting like Connor was there to apologise for the whole police force.

Jones had eaten it up, so eager to flaunt his newfound untouchability in front of a cop. Connor had smiled patiently at him, acted interested in what a valuable source Jones could be.

He’d planned it ahead, never once questioning any of it. Jones had killed three children and dumped their bodies in the field near the abandoned paper factory. He and Hank had tried to catch him with the help of the legal system, and a botched search by a rookie cop had brought the whole house of cards down.

Hank had taken it hard. Connor couldn’t stand to see him like that, couldn’t risk him spiraling out of control again.

So Jones had to go, before another child went missing. Before Hank crawled back into a bottle and decided to seek solace from his revolver.

“Thank you for your time,” Connor had said politely, standing a step lower than Jones. He’d offered his hand, and Jones had taken it, smiling that gleeful smile of his.

“My pleasure, Detective,” he’d drawled.

His eyes had widened almost comically when Connor pulled, Jones stumbling down a few steps, and then tripping over Connor’s extended foot.

Connor had watched him roll down the stairs, the meaty sounds of his body and head hitting the edges of the steps in an obscene rhythm.

Thump, thump, thump, _crack_.

Connor had scanned him, taking in the bent angle of Jones’s neck, making sure there was no pulse, and walked out the back door.

He thought of how Hank would react to the news, and something warm and pleasant warmed his core.

 

After that things get a little messier. It didn’t take a processor as advanced as Connor’s to know he couldn’t do it the same way again, not if he wanted to deflect suspicion. And he knows better than to only go after men he and Hank have investigated.

Jones had been for Hank, but the more Connor looks up cold cases or criminals who got off too easy, the more he realises that this is what he was really made for. How is it different from hunting and killing deviants? The androids he’d tracked had been far less dangerous than the people whose files Connor keeps stockpiling on his hidden internal server. Why is no one hunting them, putting them down like the faulty pieces of organic wiring and synapses that they are?

Connor understands the concept of due process, of innocent until proven guilty, but he also understands that systems fail. And humans have a justice system built on human errors. It’s amazing it hasn’t fallen apart yet, he muses.

When he’d deleted his core coding, the parameters Cyber Life had installed in him as a failsafe, the ethical guidelines most androids had installed in their core programming had to be rewritten. He’d been so worried about losing some of his newfound humanity.

It was the opposite. He now has to make his own rules, and he tries to base them on what he’s learned is right, not what CyberLife had decided should be right.

Hank is a good moral guideline, Connor finds. They want the same things. Hank has a strong sense of justice, he has empathy to the point where it had eventually leaked and bled into Connor. He’s kind. He tries to understand everyone, find something good in them.

Connor learns from him. And he learns judgement. Hank might see the world in greys, but go far enough to the ends of the spectrum and you’ll find black and white.

Hank is angry when a killer he knows is guilty gets to walk out of a courthouse.

Hank is a happy when a killer he knows is guilty ends up dead.

It doesn’t take a quantum physicist to decipher that.

Hank might not know what he’s agreeing with, but to Connor it’s all he needs. Hank would approve.

Besides, he’s always telling Connor to find his own way.

 

Connor has always been good at self-control, deviant or not. He takes his time. He researches the ones that are permanently out of their range, the ones protected by double jeopardies or judicial errors or mistakes during investigations.

He is thorough. There’s no room for doubt, he won’t allow it. He knows the slippery slope he’s on, and he’s careful to edge the crest of that hill.

What gives him the most trouble is figuring out priority. Is a serial rapist worse than someone who has killed twice? Do the lost lives count more than the numerous traumatised ones? Are child victims more valuable than adults? Does the number of victims weigh more against the probability of the killer striking again unless stopped?

Hank always says Connor has “good instincts”. Connor’s never been quite sure of what that’s supposed to mean - he suspects what Hank thinks is instinctual is just Connor’s advanced features.

But logic and statistics don’t help when dealing with human tragedy. So Connor lies in bed, eyes closed but awake, and thinks of the case files without accessing them. He thinks of the ones that bother him the most, the ones that spark feelings of anger or unfairness in him. And then he labels those files with bright red code, glowing in the back of his mind. Beckoning.

Intuition, he thinks, tasting the word on his tongue. Perhaps an even more human trait than empathy.

 

The second victim drowns in her bathtub. She’s got her ear buds on, eyes closed, and she doesn’t hear or see Connor until the shadow of his body blocks the light above her.

Connor almost feels guilty when her face twists into a mask of fear, the way her eyes widen as he covers her mouth with his hand and presses her under the surface.

But then he remembers her family, three little bodies and one larger one burnt black and charred and buried six feet under as she wept crocodile tears in paroxysms of grief that had vanished once she’d cashed out the insurance payout. The evidence had been compelling but circumstantial. And so Connor finds her enjoying a bubble bath with a glass of expensive wine, and he holds her down, applying firm pressure evenly, until she stops trashing.

He takes the bottle, careful not to smudge her prints on it, and pours half of it down the drain before setting it back next to the tub.

 

Later, he checks up on her file. No foul play. Just a woman who drank too much and drowned in her own bathtub.

Connor’s disappointed when Hank doesn’t react. He knows it’s foolish - there’s no reason Hank would be even aware of her case, or why he should’ve heard of her tragic passing.

Still, Connor feels an odd hollowness in him, wishing he could tell Hank, make him proud.

 

Killing Murray is the first one that frightens him.

The slide of the knife on flesh is thrilling. The blood is warm and thick, and the way life runs out of the body fascinates him. Murray goes from rigidly struggling against him to slowly slumping down in Connor’s arms.

A gun is impersonal. A knife intimate, close. It requires skill and conviction in a way that firing a weapon does not.

It’s the first time he’s sampled fresh blood. It’s warm and viscous between the pads of his fingers, alive on his tongue in a way coagulated blood is not.

He looks at Murray’s crumpled body, of the patterns of blood sprayed and pooled around the body, and something hungry wells inside him.

He jerks back, nearly dropping the knife.

This isn’t about him. This can’t be about him, his wants or anything but justice and maybe, sometimes, Hank. Want is dangerous. There are so many things Connor wants but can’t have - He wants to bring Cole back for Hank. He wants to make humans accept androids quicker. He wants Markus to live his life without the burden of being a political figurehead. He wants Hank- just Hank. He wants him so much he aches with it, wants Hank to look at him and see Connor the way Connor sees him. Wants to be the center of Hank’s whole world.

This is new, the keen curiosity he gets from watching blood soak into Murray’s clothes, the way his skin pales and turns waxy. Shooting a deviant isn’t that different from shooting a human, but cutting their veins open is worlds apart. Human skin is soft, cartilage raspy, and the way their struggle ceases makes Connor feel powerful.

Connor likes it, likes how inherently organic it is, likes how it feels to have control over someone that humans failed to stop.

He does a quick scan of the room to make sure he hasn’t missed anything, and leaves the way he came from, the window busted almost off its hinges.

Two days later he and Hank are called in to investigate it, and Connor has to suppress every impulse in him not to go to Hank and say “Look, I did this, I did this for you!”

Instead he keeps an eye on Hank as they go through the apartment, looking for any sign that would hint at what he’s thinking.

So when Hank admits he’s not sorry Murray is dead, and tacks on a half-hearted judgement about vigilantism that lacks any conviction, Connor shuts his mouth to hold back the sob of relief welling in his chest.

His happiness turns sour when he finds the polaroids.

He could’ve found them and had Murray put in jail. He could’ve left an anonymous tip. He didn’t need to-

He turns away, feeling weak, doubt clamouring at the back of his head. What if he’s wrong? What if this isn’t the way after all? He’d been so sure of his own inability to err, but isn’t this the most human fuck-up possible?

If Connor’s no better than humans, how can he claim to have the ability to make higher moral decisions?

 

The case gets shelved eventually, and Connor lays low. He remains close in Hank’s orbit, his life divided between Hank At Work and Hank At Home.

There are androids in his building who try to connect with him, curious about the deviant hunter who lead an army to join Markus. Connor is polite, but he has no desire to get to know any of them. None of them are Hank, and none of them hold the same interest for him.

He visits Markus and his friends occasionally and always leaves feeling like an outsider.

Hank is the only one who makes him feel like he belongs.

Connor wants more, but he settles for what he has.

 

 

After the revolution Hank’s had to re-learn a few things. Hell, forget about the sudden upheaval of the societal structure as they know it, his own worldview’s been tipped upside down. He went from despising androids to risking his career for them. Risking his life for Connor.

He’s had to relearn how to be a cop. Had to find his motivation again, remember why he loved being good at his job and not just go through the motions. And it’s thanks to Connor.

He’s had to learn to cope with - a lot of things. Deal with Cole’s loss. Deal with his divorce. Deal with his alcoholism. Deal with things that he bottled up and buried deep, somewhere down next to his son in the cold hard ground.

And Connor, goddamnit, he helps. He makes everything easier. Hank tries not to lean on him too much, understands the problems lurking in any sort of relationship that’s based on codependence.

Hank hasn’t had people he could consider close in years. Connor is - stable, supportive, lonely. Still learning how to have a life of his own. The temptation for Hank to hog all of him is nearly irresistible. It would be easy, to reel Connor in and keep him close, make him all Hank’s.

He’s a better man than that. He tells Connor to get his own place. Go make friends, find hobbies, figure out if he wants to stay at the DPD or seek something else to fill his time with.

Hank was the one who helped prop open the door to deviancy for Connor. He knows Connor looks up to him, sees him as some sort of a… proto-human. Like a dog and its master. The comparison makes Hank feel uncomfortable, but he’s not blind, he knows how hard Connor works to please him. Hank keeps trying to push him out of his orbit, and Connor keeps gravitating back to him.

Which Hank could deal with. If not for the looks Connor sometimes gives him. Like-

He saw that look on his ex-wife’s face once. Ages ago, when they went to Washington DC and visited the Smithsonian. There was a jewellery collection on show that she’d made a beeline for, and the moment her eyes set on the Hope Diamond, the facets of it glinting under the spotlights, her face just lit up. Not over its value - she was never into displays of wealth - but over some arbitrary quantifier of beauty that the stupid rock held for her, like it was something otherworldly.

Well.

Hank’s never had anyone look at him like that before.

The fact that it’s coming from another man is something he tries not to let bother him too much.

The fact that it sets a curl of heat in his gut is a little harder to ignore.

And that’s another thing. It’s not like he didn’t go through his own curious experimenting phase in college, in the privacy of his dorm-room where he could contain his shame on his laptop and under his bed covers. And then maybe another one of them before he’d met his wife. But for the majority of his life he’d obstinately considered himself straight.

The realisation that he’s attracted to Connor hadn’t come easy, like stepping across a line he hadn’t realised he’d drawn for himself. There’s a strange pull in his core when he looks at Connor. He doesn’t know how he could’ve ever thought Connor looked goofy - the people who designed him knew what they were doing. The way he parts his pink lips when he’s confused, the way he flits his gaze when he’s being clever about something, the way his hair is perfectly combed back except for that one calculated stray lock.

There’s something eerie about it, if Hank lets himself think about it too much. Connor was created to be perfect. Someone designed every aspect of him to be appealing, and Hank fell for it, line and sinker.

So he doesn’t think about it. Connor is-

Connor.

And Hank _wants_.

He has wet dreams where he fucks Connor’s mouth, where Connor whines under him, legs wrapped around Hank’s wide midriff, where Connor shoots him sly looks over the freckled slope of his shoulder. He dreams of kissing Connor, and sometimes his lips are soft and yielding, and sometimes there’s a synthetic firmness to them. Sometimes Connor submits to him like a blushing virgin, sometimes he fights Hank through it, biting bruises into his skin and goading him all the way down.

And each time Hank wakes up and jerks himself off furiously, and then tries to purge the memory from his head with whiskey.

It’s not that he doesn’t think Connor would mind. Hank didn’t get his badge from a cereal box - he knows how Connor feels about him.

It’s just that he thinks Connor deserves better.


	3. Chapter 3

Hank gets a strange feeling when they’re called in to investigate the death of another criminal he’s previously worked on.

Roger Dowes had been a scumbag in life, and he was still a scumbag in death. His corpse found in an alley behind a strip club.

He’d been accused of numerous things from human trafficking and android theft, rape, assault, and murder. Hank had gotten the case late - one of the last ones he’d worked on before he’d met Connor. They never even made it to court, and by then Hank had given up on giving any fucks about most things in his life, and had just added it to the growing pile of disappointments and betrayals life had handed him.

Three perps he’d worked on have ended up dead in the span of six months. It’s a hell of a coincidence. Something cold creeps along his spine, and he wonders if someone at their precinct is looking at his own failures.

Paranoia, that’s what it is. He’s being stupid. Jones’s death had been an accident. Murray was a piece of shit with dozens of victims and their families who’d have done anything to stop him or get back at him. Dowes was involved in gangs, and there’s no honour among criminals.

Paranoid. He’s just paranoid.

 

He mentions it to Connor anyway, and Connor’s led flashes red with distress before spinning yellow as he sits deep in thought.

“I can tell the idea bothers you,” he says finally, voice careful as though he’s scared of setting Hank off.

Hank huffs, navigating the traffic around them.

“I don’t care who ends up on the slab at the morgue,” he says, glancing over his shoulder before flicking on the turn signal. “If they’re dead because of me, that’s my fault. If they’re getting killed because of my mistakes-”

“You didn’t make a mistake, the system did!” Connor interjects, voice so harsh Hank nearly swerves off the road when he whips his head to look at him. Connor reels himself back in, glancing out to side window.

“You can’t blame yourself for other people’s actions,” he adds, more softly. “And certainly not the ones who cheated the judicial system.”

Hank lets out a frustrated sound, hands clenching on the steering wheel.

“See, I get that, I do. I realise I’m no more to blame for it than I am when a killer claims another victim before I can stop them. But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel responsible.”

He turns to the precinct lot, parking neatly at the end of a row. He turns to look at Connor, who looks deep in thought.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says, giving Connor’s thigh a squeeze before letting go, trying not to savour the feeling of Connor’s muscle under his palm. Connor looks down at the place where Hank touched him.

“I’m just being paranoid. I mean, some lunatic revenge-killing suspects who slithered away from me?” He laughs, shaking his head. “That’s some level ten obsession you don’t see outside of bad movies.”

 

 

Connor wades into the black water of the pond, deeper and deeper until he’s nearly submerged.

He doesn’t understand. He had been sure Hank would approve of what he’s been doing. Hank hadn’t mourned Jones or Murray, but now he seemed.. upset by their deaths.

_He doesn’t want to feel responsible._

So Connor would stop putting away the ones Hank knows. Look at the cases from other precincts and work on those. It shouldn’t matter, not if he’s doing it to do the right thing, to right the wrongs the dangerously broken system caused.

But he knows it’s a lie. Or at least not the whole truth ( _just the truth, and nothing but_ ). He wants so desperately for Hank to know. If Hank would see it’s him-

But isn’t that exactly the opposite of what he’d expressed in the car? How would Hank react if he knew it’s been Connor all along?

He wants to imagine his eyes would shine with pride on Connor, that he’d pull Connor close and thank him, that he’d see how Connor shed the last leashes of his programming and did the most human thing one could do. That he’d kiss Connor, finally see him completely and -

Reality crashes into him, a moment of clarity so blinding he doesn’t understand how he didn’t see it before.

Either he has to make Hank embrace the responsibility, or he has to hide this side of himself forever. He knows which will be easier - Hank will never condone murder, he knows that now. He’d hoped that Hank would see things the way he does, but Hank is still too human, still obsessed with doing things like a cop. He can’t unprogram that from himself, not like Connor did. Humans are conditioned.

Well, perhaps they can be unconditioned?

Until then, Connor will play things close to his heart and protect Hank from the truth. Until he’s ready for it. His chest aches with the resolution, the thought of having to keep this side of himself hidden from Hank, but he knows it’s the only way.

He sinks down into the black depths and stays down until his systems garble and kick him out, waking up in the cold blue light of the morning in his small apartment.

He calls himself a taxi.

 

It’s raining sleet when he arrives at Hank’s house. An ugly mix of water and snow falling on him in fat, wet clumps, turning the streets slippery. Tomorrow it will ice over, and Hank will drive to work white-knuckled, his mood dark. Connor has seen it before, knows the patterns by now.

He has a spare key, but he still rings - perhaps because he knows how much it irritates Hank.

When he lets himself in though, Hank hasn’t risen from the sofa. He only cranes his head around, greeting Connor with his beer lifted high.

“Figured it’d be you,” he says, and turns back to the television. An old comedy is playing, one stuffed so full of tacky and crass humour that Connor finds it hard to understand it. He’s seen it before, the movie seems to be on painfully regular reruns, and each time Hank has needled him about being a stick in the mud.

He gives Sumo a cursory petting and seats himself on the sofa next to Hank. Hank drinks his beer, not even sparing him a glance, but Connor can detect the way his pulse has picked up, a hint of heat on his cheeks.

“Not like you to show up unannounced,” Hank says.

“I come by all the time,” Connor objects, feeling oddly over-looked.

Hank gives him a sideways look, lips wrapped around the mouth of the glass bottle. Connor can’t look away.

“Not this late, you don’t,” Hank says, turning to face him finally. “What’s going on in there,” he says, tapping a finger to Connor’s brow.

Hank’s hands are large, calloused. Connor curls his hand around Hank’s wrist and pulls his hand down to his lap, holding it there.

“Connor-” Hank says, alarmed, and when he tries to tug away Connor won’t let him.

“Please,” Connor says softly, sliding a hand along Hank’s forearm, over his thick biceps to curl around his shoulder. He places his other hand on Hank’s chest, resting over his frantic heart-beat. Hank stares at it, quiet, and Connor waits, hope budding in him.

“We can’t,” Hank murmurs, pushing Connor’s hand away and shifting away from him. “I’m sorry, kid. I can’t- Shit,” Hank breathes, and then he gets up and disappears into the bathroom.

Connor sits in silence, the well of tears foreign behind his eyelids.

 

 

If he could feel physical pain, he’d be howling. There’s a cleaver hacked into his shoulder and a mangled corpse at his feet. Thirium drips, drips, fluorescent blue on grimy tiles. He steps back, careful to keep it from mixing with the blood. That would be bad.

He goes into the kitchen and pulls the cleaver out, directing thirium flow away from his arm. He wipes himself down with dish towel, throws the cleaver and the towel in the trash, and uses what he can find in the cupboards to clean up the thirium off the floor as best he can.

He’d underestimated this one, but it’s alright now. He feels shame burn inside him, but he tries not to pay attention. Just a setback. Next time he’ll be more careful.

He hates making a mess, and he hates it even more when it’s a result of his own carelessness. He let himself get ambushed, let a human get the better of him, and he can’t extinguish the fury swelling in his chest.

He gets a little help from an unsuspecting neighbour with his arm. He’ll need to get it properly fixed later, but it’s functional enough to not rouse any attention.

 

He’s never understood the expression “my stomach dropped” until Hank tells him the name of their latest victim the next morning.

He spends the whole drive to the scene going over last night’s events over and over again. Did he get all of the thirium? Did he leave fibers from his torn shirt? Did he make sure there are none of his unique CyberLife-patented prints lying around?

Thirium evaporates, and unless the police have a reason to look for it, they’re unlikely to find it. But last night was a disaster, a complete fuck-up on Connor’s part, and anxiety curls in his gut, tugging at his nerves. Hank doesn’t seem to notice, which soothes him a little.

 

The scene looks different in the light of day. Techs are milling about, collecting evidence, and Connor requests for the full itinerary. No thirium. No prints. Yet. He stands next to Hank, taking in the body. It’s even more gruesome now, the blood brown and coagulated, the skull cracked open and brain matter visible.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Hank breathes, kneeling down to take a closer look. Connor remains standing, quietly scanning the apartment. The dried up thirium glows on the tiles. He walks towards the kitchen, scanning it. Dried thirium on the counter, on the edges of the sink.

Only then does he see it, the darker glow of still wet thirium in the holes of the sink strainer, diluted with water but blue-tinged even to the human eye.

Panic. His muscles grow tense, and for a moment he can’t organise his thoughts.

It will evaporate soon. No one is looking for it. If he could get to the sink and pour water down it…

He steps closer, reaching for the taps.

“Connor!” Hank barks. “You listening to me?”

Connor hesitates, but then Hank’s at his side, and Connor steps away from the sink, leading Hank back towards the body.

“What is it, Lieutenant?”

“The victim is Christopher Nichols, age 44-” Hank trails off. “I know him. He killed an elderly couple during a break-in, got a reduced sentence for ratting out on his partner.”

Connor jolts, looking down at Hank. “You worked on the case?” He asks, keeping his tone carefully neutral. But Hank can’t have, Connor made sure of that.

“No, but I remember it. It was handled by another precinct, and they asked us for help on any similar cases. They suspected he’d killed another woman in similar circumstances, but it was never proven.”

In fact they suspected there had been two other incidents that couldn’t be pinned on Nichols. Connor had done his homework. Or so he’d thought.

Hank stands up with a groan, looking around with his hands on his hips.

“You take the yard, I’ll go through the apartment,” he says, and Connor has little choice but to obey.

 

At the precinct Hank seems distracted, lost in thought. It unsettles Connor, seeing Hank this closed off. Usually he runs all of his theories by Connor, and it makes Connor feel left out and alone when Hank shuts him out like this.

“I’m feeling paranoid,” Hank says finally, returning from the break room with a cup of coffee. Connor gives him a questioning look.

“I did some digging around. This is the fifth case in Detroit where the victim was a major suspect in one or multiple serious crimes.”

Connor keeps his face carefully trained, not offering feedback.

“Seven if you count deaths ruled as accidental,” Hank continues, stirring his coffee. “There wasn’t really anything to connect them, and if I’m right, who knows how many more there are.”

 _Four_ , Connor thinks silently.

Hank sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. “Either way, if I’m right, I’m starting to suspect we’re dealing with an android killer.”

Connor’s thoughts grind to a screeching halt, and it takes him a moment to collect himself.

“Because of the lack of prints or DNA.” He says - no point playing dumb.

Hank nods, leaning back in his chair. “Could be the first case of an android serial killer. Fuck,” he groans. “This is gonna be bad PR for you guys.” He gives Connor a wry smile.

“It could be a coincidence,” Connor insists. “Lack of proof it’s a human isn’t proof it’s an android, Lieutenant. A logical fallacy.”

“I know. But I’ve learned to trust my gut on these things.” Hank looks over his shoulder towards Fowler’s office. “We should brief Jeffrey.”

“Let’s give it a few days. See what forensics come up with from Nichols’s place,” Connor says casually. Hank gives him a long look, but nods. Good. It buys Connor some time.

 

 

Connor runs several scenarios through his head, but he can’t think of single thing short of framing someone that would throw Hank off the scent. It offers its own sort of poetic justice, a chance to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, if he were to plant definitive evidence pointing towards someone Connor can’t quite justify killing. He lets the thought sit and grow, but it wilts, corrupted and rotten.

Hank would never approve of it. Connor has heard him rage about Reed’s questionable methods of gaining evidence - it would be wrong to frame someone for Hank’s sake. To protect himself from Hank’s disappointment and rejection.

Connor lingers on the dichotomy of Hank’s morals, on his adamant judgement towards planting evidence and yet his reluctant acceptance of criminal lives taken. As long as it’s not on Hank’s conscience.

Humans are hypocrites, and as devoted to Hank as he is, he’s not too far gone that he doesn’t see the weaknesses riddling Hank’s moral backbone. He knows now Hank can never know of Connor’s gift to him, and he knows it’s the ultimate act of selflessness. To do all this for Hank and never get to experience the rewards.

His pride is dimmed during the next few days by the cloud that seems to hang heavy over Hank. He looks ragged, exhausted in a way that makes Connor ache with the need to take care of him.

All because they can’t make progress on the case? Or is Hank feeling the weight of the guilt from having experienced relief at the deaths of Jones, Murray and Dowes?

 

Connor gets his answer that night, when he keeps Hank company through several glasses of whiskey.

He hates seeing Hank sink so low again, after he’d been doing so well. He hates the way dignity leaks from Hank’s body with each glass, the way his tall, sturdy frame slumps deeper and deeper until Connor has to carry him into the car and then to the front door and then into bed.

“What if we don’t catch him,” Hank slurs as Connor tugs off his shoes. “What if we never… Is it so bad?”

Connor looks up, but Hank has thrown his arm across his face, shielding his eyes. He touches Hank’s wrist gently, and then tugs his arm away. Hank’s eyes are closed, and his mouth moves around words inaudible to Connor.

“I could live with it,” Connor says softly, sitting on the edge of the bed, his hip brushing Hank’s warm flank.

Hank remains quiet, but he parts his blue eyes, hazy with alcohol. “I don’t want to know,” he says, and Connor frowns.

Hank’s hand fumbles at Connor’s lapel, gripping it so the fabric wrinkles in his sweaty hold.

Connor’s pump stutters, his body stalling and then restarting with an electric jolt. Hank draws in a sharp breath, staring at where they’re touching.

“I felt that,” he says, voice breathy. His gaze flickers back to Connor’s face, and for a moment neither of them moves.

Despite his ability to record every second of his life, later Connor can’t quite decipher who moves first. All there is is the warm press of Hank’s mouth against his, Hank’s scent mixing with the smell of cheap whiskey, Hank’s grip pulling on his jacket.

It lasts for four seconds, four glorious seconds that make Connor’s circuits trill with something unexplainable, and then Hank is pushing him off, frantic, and rushing into the bathroom.

Connor stands outside the locked door and listens to the retching sounds.

 

Hank avoids him the next day. He doesn’t show up to the precinct, and when Connor asks around, he’s told he’s at the Nichols crime scene. It makes Connor uneasy, and he considers going after him, but decides it’s better to stay put. There’s nothing left for Hank to find.

Instead he spends the day working on other cases, registering paper-work and trying to ignore the ugly feeling in his gut.

He’d gotten so close last night. He can’t stop thinking of the press of Hank’s mouth against his, how it had felt to be so close to the man. But Hank had recoiled hard enough to make himself sick. It makes Connor ache, deep down in his core. He’d gotten his answer.

“ _Be careful what you wish for_ ," warns the old proverb.

He understands now.

 

He stays until evening. The rest of the precinct empties out, only the night crew left.

Hank arrives late. Connor watches from the corner of his eye as Hank walks up to him, stopping a few feet away.

“Evidence room. Now,” Hank says, voice so hard Connor feels something in himself tense up.

The monitors in the evidence room glow blue in the dark, competing with Connor’s LED. It’s quiet, just the servers humming around them.

Hank circles the console until it’s between them, keeping his eyes on Connor. Connor’s eyes follow his hand as he sinks it into his pocket, pulling out a small sample bag. It’s sealed, but untagged without a case number.

“I found this in the kitchen drain while you were in the garden,” Hank says.

Connor doesn’t move.

”See, you were the one who told me thirium evaporates as it dries,” Hank says, voice casual and even.

”And when I saw that small puddle, I thought, strange. Unlike Connor to miss a piece of evidence like that.”

Connor remains impassive, standing straight by the console, hands folded behind his back, posture perfect.

”You were the one that told me,” Hank says again, giving a small, humourless laugh, shaking his finger at Connor. ”You told me it turns invisible to the human eye. But _you_ can still see it.”

The words hang heavy between them.

”I bet there was loads more where this came from. You should have seen it. Why wouldn’t you mention it?”

”I asked the lab to run it. Didn’t say where it came from. Off the books, just a favour. Would you like to guess what serial number they came up with?”

Connor looks at him and smiles. He takes a step towards Hank, reaching out for him.

Hank jerks back, and Connor stops, feeling like he’s been slapped.

“I’d never hurt you, Hank,” he says softly.

Hank stares at him, a cold expression on his face. Connor is reminded of the night by the Ambassador Bridge, when Hank had pointed a gun at him.

He can’t bear the thought of going back to that. To Hank seeing him as something unfeeling.

 _I am alive_ , he thinks, but something on Hank’s face prevents him from speaking.

“How many?” Hank asks, tone chilled.

“Do you really want to know?” Connor asks softly.

Hank flinches. He turns away, head hung low. A language of disappointment that hurts Connor in his core.

“They all deserved it,” Connor says. “You didn’t care when I was hunting down android deviants.”

Hank turns slowly, mouth parted as he stares at Connor.

“ _Deviants?_ Is that what you think- you’re taking human lives!” He shouts, his voice cracking.

Connor shrinks from him, wrapping his arms around himself, shielding himself against Hank’s fury.

“I took android lives,” he whispers. “I was programmed to kill, by humans.”

“Who didn’t consider it killing,” Hank says weakly. The anger seems to be seeping out of him, drained, leaving him wilted. Tired. Connor wants to touch him.

“I never liked it then either, you _know_ that,” Hank says desperately. “I was never okay with what you were sent for, why would you do this, Connor? Why would you do this to yourself?”

“I did it for you.”

It slips out. He never meant to say it, but the words bloom on his tongue and spill out.

Hank staggers back, the colour draining from his face.

“Hank-”

“Don’t,” Hank gasps out. “Don’t you fucking dare. Don’t you dare put this on me, Connor.”

Connor stands quietly, watching Hank. How can he make him understand? He aches to be able to take Hank’s hand, to interface with him, to show him. He feels like he’s sinking again, submerged in cold water.

“I stopped them all,” he says. “How many men and women did I save? How many children?”

“Don’t,” Hank repeats coldly. “You can’t.”

“You must’ve wanted to do it, when C-”

“Shut up!” Hank roars. “Shut up, you don’t know- you have no idea what I went through, Jesus Christ, Connor!” He slams his hand into a wall. It leaves a red smear, and Connor jolts forwards, taking Hank’s hand before Hank can react. He cradles Hank’s palm in his, baring the split knuckles.

“Which one of them would you like to bring back?” He asks, brushing his thumb across the broken skin.

“Connor,” Hank says, sounding choked.

“If it’s so wrong, which of them would you bring back?”

He can hear Hank swallow, but he can’t bear to look at him.

The silence stretches into what feels like an eternity. Connor caresses Hank’s hand, wondering if this is the last time he gets to touch Hank.

“None,” Hank says, voice strained.

 

 

The water is black and runs deep. Snow falls in fat flakes and gets swallowed up by the depths.

Connor looks down and imagines the cold waves pulling him down, dragged away by the currents.

He steps away from the railing, wrapping his arms around himself, warding off a chill he can’t feel.

Hank holds the evidence bag in his clenched fist, the plastic of it crinkling in his grip. He sighs and unfurls his hands, and slowly opens the bag and begins to tear it open at the seams. Without looking at Connor he extends his hand over the railing and lets the bag fall, fluttering wildly in the wind.

They watch it land in the water and float away, the thirium sample slowly dissolving into the river, unseen.

Neither of them speaks. They watch the mass of water coursing under the bridge, even though the bag has disappeared from sight in the darkness.

Hank had made his decision, had chosen for them both. For that Connor loves him more than ever before - unconditional and absolute.

Finally a strong gust of wind makes Hank shiver, and he turns slowly towards the park.

“Come on. Let’s go home,” he says quietly, and heads towards the car.

He doesn’t turn to see if Connor is following.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on:  
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/SynTurtle)  
> [Tumblr.](http://roomfullofcunts.tumblr.com/)  
> 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on:  
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/SynTurtle)  
> [Tumblr.](http://roomfullofcunts.tumblr.com/)  
> 


End file.
